Ravi in India defends decision to join China’s OBOR project

Foreign Affairs Minister Ravi Karunanayake, who was in India, defended Sri Lanka’s move to join China’s One Belt One Road (OBOR) infrastructure initiative, stating that it was a considered decision taken on the basis of its foreign policy, Indian news agency Livemint reported on Thursday.

Minister Karunanayake said India had discussed the subject of Sri Lanka joining the OBOR project with Sri Lanka’s president Maithripala Sirisena and Prime Minister Ranil Wickremesinghe. “We are a small country and our foreign policy is friends with all, enemies with none,” he said.

He said Sri Lanka has been a key point in international shipping routes that have been criss-crossing from east to west for several hundreds of years and joining OBOR was a natural consequence of this.

China’s OBOR project aims to put billions of dollars in infrastructure projects including railways, ports and power grids across Asia, Africa and Europe.